Closing Open Skies

The author is a senior researcher with the Center for China-U.S. Relations, Tsinghua University

In August 2017, an unarmed Russian Air Force aircraft flew over the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Base Andrews at a low altitude and then landed at the McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita, Kansas. It was not a Hollywood movie plot, nor did the Russian military jet accidentally enter U.S. airspace. It was actually a reconnaissance flight under the Open Skies Treaty, which was signed in March 1992 and went into effect in 2002.

The treaty involves a total of 34 signatories